On the 2nd, Marines are conducting landing training on a coast in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province. yunhap news
On the 7th, North Korea targeted South Korean military leaders, including Defense Minister Lee Jong-seop, saying, “From the beginning of the New Year, they are frantically engaged in a war confrontation.”
North Korea’s weekly magazine ‘Tongil Sinbo’, in an article titled ‘The Terminal Symptoms of Those Suffering from a Showdown Disease’, said on the same day, “The Minister of National Defense said, ‘We must not hesitate to punish strongly,’ so he took off the lead with bad words, followed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The heads of the military, such as the Chief of Staff of the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army, advocated’maintaining an operational posture’ one after another and urged the lower ones,” he said.
This was referring to what Minister Lee said at an emergency commanders’ meeting on New Year’s Day, “If North Korea commits a direct provocation, we must not hesitate to punish it decisively and forcefully as part of the right to self-defense.”
On the 2nd, on a coast in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, the 1st Marine Division is conducting landing training using an amphibious assault vehicle (KAAV). yunhap news
The Tongil Shinbo also criticized the establishment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Nuclear and WMD Response Headquarters” and the recent training conducted by the 1st Marine Division using 17 Korean-style amphibious assault vehicles (KAAV).
The Tongil Shinbo said, “A chased dog barks more loudly.” “At a time when even the US superiors are trembling in the Republic’s military strength that is advancing day by day and are looking for a hole in their flesh, the US’s servants, nothing more than cannonball food, are different from spent iron. It’s really laughable to see him wielding a military plow that doesn’t exist and making bluffs that aren’t equal.”
“The reckless behavior of the South Korean belligerents, who have been indulging themselves since the beginning of the year, is revealing every single criminal plot to disrupt the year with the North invasion war this year, just like last year,” he said. You have to watch and act sensibly.”